EF1 Tornado — Bienville, Louisiana

2024-07-08 · near Brice, Bienville, Louisiana

Event narrative

An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 104 mph touched down along Piney Woods Road west of the Bienville community, where several softwood trees were snapped. The tornado then moved over a heavily wooded area inaccessible by vehicle, but a tornadic debris signature (TDS) was indicated on Doppler radar between Piney Woods Road and Parish Road 478, with another area of snapped trees observed along Parish Road 478, before lifting just to the north-northwest along Highway 507 where a few trees were snapped.

Wider weather episode

Tropical Storm Beryl briefly strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane with 80 mph winds as it made landfall along the Southeast Texas coast near Matagorda Bay during the early morning hours of July 8th, and tracked north-northeast across East Texas and into Southwest Arkansas during the afternoon and evening hours. While Beryl weakened into a tropical storm over portions of Deep East Texas by mid-afternoon, very strong wind shear and helicity existed near and east of the center, contributing to the largest tornado outbreak in NWS Shreveport history, as well as with any landfalling tropical system. A total of 43 tornadoes were confirmed through NWS surveys across East Texas, North Louisiana, and Southwest Arkansas, before Beryl weakened into a depression by late afternoon over East Texas. As a part of this outbreak, 25 tornadoes touched down across portions of North Louisiana.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.3227, -93.0327)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1203708. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.